Letter: Maths scandal

You mention the absence of a Nobel Prize for mathematics, saying that the reason was that Nobel's wife ran off with a mathematician (This Week, 18 August). It is an attractive and oft-related tale but there is no evidence for it. Indeed, Nobel was a confirmed bachelor. (Some versions of the tale substitute 'mistress' for 'wife' to get round this difficulty, but there is no evidence for that either. I suspect the story was invented by a mathematician as a bit of PR: it makes mathematicians seem more human.) There is also no evidence for an alternative theory, that Nobel detested the Swedish mathematician Mittag-Leffler and was worried that he would win a prize if there was one. Nobel emigrated from Sweden while Mittag-Leffler was still a student, and spent much of his life in Paris. Mittag-Leffler remained in Stockholm: they appear to have had no dealings with one another. ...

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